UMO ENO: THE MAN OF PEACE, AND GOVERNANCE.
Peace is the prime value in contemporary Akwa Ibom State, the most valuable public good. No government will deliver her political goods to citizens, and exercise power to manage the collective affairs of a community or the state, with a focus to produce an everlasting impact on the rule of law, local and state institutions, leadership, and public administration issues that will not pursue peace.
Good governance leverages on residual peace. On the other hand, the entrenchment of good governance naturally guarantees peace, the same way weak governance results in a loss of state legitimacy and will ultimately lead to conflict.
Good governance, albeit a worthy goal in itself, also attracts other positive outcomes such as peace and its resultant growth benefits.
The Holy Scripture is repleted with refinement and reward for peacemakers and peaceful governments. In one of the synoptic gospels, Jesus in his sermon on the mount personally taught the people and the disciples the eight beatitudes.
Beatitude comes from the Latin beatitudo, meaning “blessedness”. Matter of factly, the opposite of beatitude is misery-painful suffering, hardship, poverty, etc., which invariably, Jesus’ teaching is addressing. In the 9th verse ofthe 5th chapter of Matthew gospel, Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
” Peacemaking is a life’s virtue that ultimately leads to reward both in the transient and transcendent worlds. It’s Jesus’ idea that the robustness of practical or empirical structures for sustainable peace be grown.
People should be empowered to exercise choices and make decisions, rather than normative rhetoric, blind-followership, crass impunity to enslave, and force-rank peopleto conform to predetermined templates.
The era of this prohibitive trajectory of spastic, belated, inconsistent, incomprehensive and disingenuous”impure” governance and charlatanic leadership and followership is gone. Though it may sound apocryphal, but I am acutely aware and can tell you the New Frontier is here. “UMO ENO” is here, and though it is easier to shrink back from this frontier, to look to the safe mediocrity of the past, and be lulled by good intentions and high rhetoric.
As a principle that will be largely associated with statecraft, Umo Eno’s government will guarantee the delivery of public goods in a manner that is responsive to public demands, accountable, transparent in the allocation of resources, and equitable in the distribution of goods. We are desirous of these positive developmental changes from a man who will deepen structural mechanisms that promote not just governance but good governance.
Now the trumpet summons us again – not as a call to fight amongst ourselves, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, ‘‘rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation’’—a struggle against the common enemies of every Akwa Ibom citizen: joblessness, tyranny, poverty, disease, and bad governance itself.
I am asking each of you to be pioneers on this New Frontier. My call is to the young in heart, regardless of age—to all who respond to the Scriptural call: ‘‘Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed.’’ This is not going to be a small task and obligation to the government and us the citizens.
The responsibility to make peace a norm, rechanneling the primitive, inhumane and godless tendencies to rebuilding and institutionalizing the desirable human qualities that have been traditionally nurtured by violence is the intentional, moral equivalent, and growth trajectory serving our conscience and that we, the Akwa Ibomites, own the means of peace and good governance is a solid ground to pull the Akwa Ibom dream through and bring it into leadership savvy new incarnations.It is intentional and God-centered decision by His Excellency, Gov. Udom Emmanuel to foster a peaceful and progressive state by unveiling Pastor Umo Eno as his successor.
Pastor Umo Eno is a strong believer in God and the power of the personal touch, therefore, he will make competitive leadership a real time experience and will be giving us the ‘‘look’’ of the modern Governor. It’s my thought to say, if Udom Emmanuel created the ‘‘imperial governance,’’ it is Umo Eno to give it its royal trappings.
He is bringing the power of strong people, and organizational, spiritual, social and economic leadership that would resonate with the citizens.
Peace will be made a deliberate policy objective of the state, where core government ministries, in addition to fulfilling their intrinsic functions, will explicitly address challenges to peace and contribute to its sustainability. It will be positioned above all the different sectors, akin to a meta-policy that builds on and accounts for all other policies.
Peace is a relative condition of security-friendly climate that allows individuals and group relations’ progressive order and stability. It is a human desired condition and order of existence that allows the ruler and the ruled fulfill life’s obligations with minimum fear or danger on life, liberty and property.
There is a clear-cut governance shift to fostering peace – an enabled “everyday peace,” solidarity and compassion between different ethnic groups in the state; systemic development, i.e. equitable distribution of resources, tolerance for diversity, industries, reviving and vigorously pursuing rural development programmes, security, and financial inclusion.
The less tangible, quotidian, and tacit norms of interaction between individuals and groups are strong enough assets. These legacies of His Excellency, Udom Emmanuel towards sustainable peace and strategic governance needs a co-ordinated political action and responsible government to succeed him, as John F. Kennedy asserts,
“To govern is to choose”, and “Pastor Umo Eno” is the choice! By this choice, we have accepted the challenge of facing the present, and the future, and of safeguarding the interests of coming generations.
You can’t beat the “peacemaker” and his “experience”; you can’t beat “brains and character”; you can’t beat “Love and discipline”; and you can’t beat the “set time of God”. I believe the time has come for higher expectations, for common goals pursued together, for an increased political will to address our common future through the man of peace, UmoEno.
Dr. Emmanuel Abasi-akan is MD/CEO Ibom Empire Consulting, and an accomplished trained Social Development Psychologist. He is an alumnus of Lagos business school, Lagos; Kellogg School of Management, and Harvard Kennedy School, USA.
Credit : Move Media Team
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